Key performance indicators (KPIs) are factors that are defined for benchmarking or monitoring performance of organizations, businesses, hardware and/or software systems, etc. KPIs are defined and associated with objectives and goals. KPIs provide performance information that may be used by organizations or other stakeholders to understand whether targeted outcomes are achieved according to plan. A KPI defines a set of measurement criteria, based on which an accomplishment or a failure may be determined. KPI's measurement criteria may be performed in different scenarios and may be associated not only with organizational performance, but also with performance of computer systems and application. For example, some KPIs may be defined for business process analytics and/or business process monitoring.
Data may be collected to measure KPIs in order to gain insights and provide information to a decision-making process. Data and KPIs are essential tools that serve as useful indicators of how well a software system or application progresses and complies with a set goal. KPIs can also vary from application to application or a software system to a software system. Data may be interpreted as a “raw material” that feeds KPIs' measurement and that allows performing of data analysis. The data includes values (or measurements) that can be quantitative or qualitative by nature. Data may be generated in different formats, e.g. numerical, textual, or even graphical or visual. Respectfully, data can be collected in different ways, both automatically or manually. For example, data is collected automatically via sensors, or manually via providing surveys. Further, data may be collected through specific configurations defined on selected software systems that determine what type of data to be collected in order to measure a particular KPI.